The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Thursday, Kwame Holman reports on the assault weapons vote in the House, two experts explain and debate the fall of the U.S. dollar, Margaret Warner looks at how American Jews are handling peace in the Middle East, and Gregg Hirakawa updates a nuclear test story. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The House of Representatives passed the assault weapons ban today. It was a down-to-the-wire cliff hanger. The vote was 216 to 214. The bill bans 19 kinds of assault weapons. The Senate has already passed similar legislation. Today's vote followed intense lobbying on both sides. After the vote, the losing Senate cried, "Foul," saying Democratic leaders had permitted late voting to change the result. Both sides spoke to reporters outside the capitol.

REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, [R] Wisconsin: Fifteen minutes is enough time for people to cast their votes. The "no" votes were ahead at the end of 15 minutes. The political decision by the Speaker to hold open the role in order for the ayes to get ahead I think was unconscionable. The Speaker abused his power and the American public has suffered as a result.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER, [D] New York: I say this to all of America. The special interests can be beaten. It takes work, and it takes energy, and it takes perseverance, and most of all, it takes faith, faith in the fact that right can prevail and faith in the fact that people won't be frightened away from doing the right thing. So we think it's a great, great, great day. We didn't think we'd win.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton led the effort in favor of the ban. He had this comment after the vote.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: In the last year, there has been a sea change in the crime debate. To be sure, there is still a national consensus in support of the rights of hunters and sportsmen to keep and bear their arms. And as long as I am President, those rights will continue to be protected. But we have also overcome the partisanship and the rhetoric that has divided us too long and kept us from our responsibilities to provide for law and order to protect the peace and safety or ordinary Americans.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have extended excerpts from today's floor debate right after this News Summary. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: The government of Singapore today carried out the controversial punishment of four lashes with a rattan cane on American Michael Fay. The flogging took place at the prison where the 18-year-old is serving a four-month sentence for spray painting cars and other acts of vandalism. Prison officials said a doctor examined him afterwards and he was in satisfactory condition. Fay claimed he was innocent and was forced to confess. President Clinton had requested clemency from the Singapore government. Today the U.S. lodged an official protest, and the President had this to say to reporters at the White House.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think it was a mistake -- as I said before - - not only because of the nature of the punishment related to the crime but because of the questions that were raised about whether the young man was, in fact, guilty and had voluntarily confessed.

MR. MAC NEIL: Singapore's ambassador to the United States responded to the protest, saying his country's anti-vandalism laws were clear and both Singaporans and foreigners had been punished under them.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton announced a $600 million aid package for South Africa today, and he called on other nations to expand their aid as well. He said Mrs. Clinton and Vice President Gore would lead the U.S. delegation to next week's inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa. Heavy shelling continued to rock the capital of Rwanda today. UN officials in Kigali said it was the worst since ethnic fighting broke out one month ago. Aid flights to the country were suspended after a Canadian cargo plane was fired on at Kigali's airport. At least 1/4 million refugees have fled to Tanzania. A report from Tanzania late today said the interim government in Rwanda and the rebels agreed to a cease-fire starting Saturday but there was no independent confirmation of that.

MR. MAC NEIL: President Clinton has signed a directive ordering better management and more limited U.S. involvement in international peacekeeping operations. The document was signed on Tuesday. UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright told a congressional committee today that the U.S. had become acutely conscious of the value and the limits of United Nations peacekeeping. She said, "We see it as a contributor but by no means a centerpiece of our national security strategy." Three House members were arrested in front of the White House today while protesting U.S. policy on Haiti. Maxine Waters of California, Alcee Hastings of Florida, and Nydia Valazquez of New York, were taken into custody for refusing police orders to leave the area. The three Democrats oppose the administration's policy of forcibly returning Haitian refugees intercepted at sea. This afternoon, the State Department defended its policy, saying few of the boat people suffer political persecution after their return to Haiti.

MR. LEHRER: Israel continued to release Palestinian prisoners today. The release was part of the Palestinian self-rule agreement for the Gaza Strip and Jericho signed yesterday in Cairo. There were clashes today in Gaza between Israeli troops and Palestinians waiting for the released prisoners. A civil war has erupted in the nation of Yemen. Rival forces from the North and the South are reported to be fighting across the country. The former Marxist South Yemen merged with the conservative North in 1990, but their troops have clashed periodically. There were no immediate reports on the number of casualties in today's fighting.

MR. MAC NEIL: In economic news, the Labor Department reported the productivity of American workers rose 1/2 percent in the first quarter of 1994. That was the weakest gain in nearly a year. The dollar continued to recover today, following government intervention to prop it up. Earlier this week, 17 nations bought nearly $5 billion in support of a currency. We have more on this story later in the program. A federal commission has recommended extending the school year from the current 180 days and making the school day longer as well. The panel said U.S. students spend just half the time in core academic subjects as their counterparts in Germany and Japan. Education Sec. Riley endorsed the findings of the panel which did not specify how much longer the school day or year should be.

MR. LEHRER: Whitewater Special Counsel Robert Fiske today subpoenaed White House documents concerning the late deputy counsel Vincent Foster. Fiske is investigating the actions of White House staff following Foster's suicide last July. He has requested papers removed from Foster's office as well as other documents from the counsel's office and Foster's computer records. White House counsel Lloyd Cutler said there would be full cooperation with the subpoena.

MR. MAC NEIL: The Russian foreign intelligence agency today denied that prominent Western scientists had made a direct handover of nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II. Allegations to that affect appeared recently in the book Special Tasks by former KGB official Padov Sudoplatov. A report on the book aired on this program two weeks ago. A co-author, Jerrold Schecter, said today that Sudoplatov never talked of a direct handover of nuclear secrets but only of knowing cooperation. Schecter called today's Russian statement "a confirming denial." That ends our summary of the day's top stories. Ahead on the NewsHour, the assault weapons debate, the falling dollar, a Margaret Warner report on American Jews and Israel, and the claims of those were down wind from a nuclear test. UPDATE - DISARMING PROPOSAL

MR. LEHRER: We begin with President Clinton's big win in the House of Representatives this afternoon. By a close 216 to 214 votes, the House went along with the President on banning 19 kinds of assault weapons. Kwame Holman chronicles today's floor debate and vote.

SPOKESMAN: Mr. Speaker, our nation is under siege.

MR. HOLMAN: The passion and emotion common to congressional debates on gun control were clearly in evidence this morning on the floor of the House of Representatives.

REP. DAN ROSTENKOWSKI, [D] Illinois: Easter Saturday, a young man murdered on the steps of the church while a thousand parishioners were inside praying.

REP. JOHN LEWIS, [D] Georgia: I am tired, tired of attending the funerals of young men and young women killed by the hail of bullets strewn from these instruments of mass destructive.

REP. GERALD SOLOMON, [R] New York: The criminals will ignore this law if it becomes law. The law abiding citizens will have their rights taken away, and those are facts.

REP. DON YOUNG, [R] Alaska: It is my right, my constitutional right, to take that weapon which I think I can defend my family with, and I shall do so. It'll be a hot day in Ft. Yukon in January before this government takes my firearms.

MR. HOLMAN: The debate came six months after Congress approved and the President signed the Brady Bill mandating a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases. Today, the focus was a bill that would ban the sale of 19 types of so-called assault weapons and, like the Brady Bill, it too had the support and lobbying influence of the President.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: And I was on the phone till about midnight last night, and I made several calls again this morning working on this issue. And I believe we have a chance. It's very difficult. As you know, we were way, way down when we started.

MR. HOLMAN: A similar proposal to ban assault weapons failed in the House two and a half years ago by 70 votes, but this Congress is filled with new faces. Forty-two of the members who voted no last time are gone. And increased concern about the growth of violent crime attracted some new converts.

REP. AMORY HOUGHTON, [R] New York: I think every so often people like myself will come from rural areas where there are not a lot of murders, there's not a lot of abuse of weapons like this, ought to stand side by side with our compatriots in the cities. There is a crisis in the cities. It is clear whether it's drugs, whether it's killings, whether it's unemployment, and these weapons have no place there. And therefore, reluctantly, against all those people that I've dealt with over the years I feel that this ban is important, and we should do it.

REP. MICHAEL ANDREWS, [D] Texas: In Texas, we have a long and proud tradition of gun ownership and gun use. We've also got a long historic tradition of respect for law and order. And this issue is one of responsibility. Let's pass this bill. Let's help our local police fight crime.

MR. HOLMAN: But opponents of the assault weapons ban came to the House floor armed with the same arguments that succeeded during the 1991 debate.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Minority Whip: The fact is that real criminals, real rapists, do a variety of evil things, because we refused to build the prisons, we refuse to pass the pass the sentences, we refuse to insist in locking them up.

REP. RANDY CUNNINGHAM, [R] California: There are too many guns on the streets. We need to get rid of 'em. Instant check systems, limit the amount of people that can sell these weapons, and the ways, and put stiff penalties on people. A drive-by shooter should be first degree murder, not second degree murder, and the kids -- anyone in a car -- should automatically have to go to boot camp. Let's look at meaningful legislation, not just rhetoric.

REP. JOSEPH KNOLLENBERG, [R] Michigan: Military style semiautomatics are no more powerful, no more accurate, no more deadly than dozens of other firearms that are legal under the bill. Furthermore, according to the FBI, they are no more likely to be used in the commission of crimes than other guns. So why are these weapons being singled out by the gun control advocates? Simply because they look scary, and they make great props for sound bite politicians.

MR. HOLMAN: But supporters of the ban kept reciting cases in which assault weapons were used in crime.

REP. THOMAS FOGLIETTA, [D] Pennsylvania: Four men, three of them brothers, were standing on a corner in West Philadelphia. They were not involved in any crime. They were just on the wrong corner at the wrong time because it was a drug corner, and they were getting in the way of business. Four of the men who controlled the corner arrived all armed, one with an M-11. They opened fire. Nineteen shells were recovered from the M-11s. Two men died. One brother is confined to a wheelchair. One man was shot eight times and remarkably survived.

REP. ELIOT ENGEL, [D] New York: The killing on a Long Island Railroad, if that person did not have an assault weapon, many people would still be alive today.

REP. JERROLD NADLER, [D] New York: In Brooklyn just last week, a gun battle erupted in which police officers were outgunned by narcotics dealers carrying Tech 9's.

REP. LOUISE SLAUGHTER, [D] New York: When a police officer is shot to death, it is 18 times more likely an assault weapon was used.

REP. RICHARD DURBIN, [D] Illinois: These policemen are begging Congress to help take these combat weapons off the streets and out of the hands of the mentally unstable, the criminally violent, and the drug gangs.

MR. HOLMAN: But as to whether a ban on assault weapons would reduce crime opponents echoed one simple theme.

REP. CRAIG THOMAS, [R] Wyoming: If anyone in this place thinks that the bad guys are not going to get a weapon to do what they want to do, that's the greatest fallacy I've ever heard. If we thought for a minute that banning arms was going to keep people who wanted to commit crimes with weapons from doing it, everyone would be for that. We know that's not the case. We know that's not going to happen.

MR. HOLMAN: But apparently, enough members this time around were willing to take the chance an assault weapons ban would reduce crime. The bill passed by an extremely narrow margin.

REP. THOMAS FOLEY, Speaker of the House: The yeas are 216. The nays are 214, and the bill is passed without objection --

MR. HOLMAN: The margin of victory was provided at the last minute by Democrat Andrew Jacobs of Indiana, who voted against the bill last time. The measure now will be matched in a conference committee with an assault weapons ban already passed by the Senate. FOCUS - THE BUCK STOPS WHERE?

MR. MAC NEIL: Next tonight, defending the dollar. There was an unusual buying frenzy in international currency markets yesterday as the U.S. government and the central banks of 16 other nations together snatched up dollars. The reason was a sudden fear that the value of the U.S. dollar was dropping too quickly, particularly against the Japanese yen and the German mark. Against the yen, the dollar had dropped fairly steadily since early January. Against the mark, the overall direction was less steady, but there had been a sharp fall in recent weeks. Yesterday's intervention seems to have worked for now as the dollar was up a bit today. To help explain all this activity, we're joined by two economists. Fred Bergsten is director of the Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank. He served as assistant treasury secretary in the Carter administration. Klaus Friedrich is chief economist of the Dresdner Bank, Germany's second largest bank. He served for many years on the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank in Washington. Fred Bergsten, to your mind, what factors were driving the dollar down?

MR. BERGSTEN: I think there was a concern in the market that the United States economy was slowing down relative to what they had thought, and that meant that U.S. interest rates might not go up as much as they had thought, thereby making the dollar a less attractive source for foreign investment. The U.S. government and other governments seem to be afraid that there would, therefore, be a pullout of foreign capital from the U.S. bond and stock market. That might drive up interest rates, and unsettle the financial markets further.

MR. MAC NEIL: I'm going to get to whether both of you think it was a good idea to intervene or not in a moment, but just on the factors, Mr. Friedrich, what factors did you see causing this devaluation in recent weeks?

MR. FRIEDRICH: Well, we are in an environment of volatility, of unstable exchange rates, because we have monetary policy in the United States moving in one direction, maybe in a tightening direction, whereas, in Germany, monetary policy is still easing, because we are still in a recessing economy. And that always means unpredictable uncertain situation on the foreign exchange market.

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, can you -- can you discuss -- some people are pointing to the friction between the United States and Japan as one of the reasons for this uncertainty and for the fall in the dollar vis-a-vis the yen. Do you believe that, and, if so, can you explain why it would be the case?

MR. FRIEDRICH: I do believe it, yes. With that background of a relatively volatile environment in the first case, actions such as trying to use an exchange rate as trade policy, talking the yen up by talking the dollar down does not have happen in a vacuum. It affects other currencies as well, and I do believe that it spilled over onto the German mark.

MR. MAC NEIL: So you believe the United States was deliberately trying to get a gap between the yen and the dollar with what in mind?

MR. FRIEDRICH: Oh, I think there was a time when the difficulties in the trade issue between the United States and Japan involved a United States desire to have a strong yen, which would make Japanese exporters less competitive, but I think this sort of --

MR. MAC NEIL: With the further idea that that would make the Japanese more amenable to liberalizing their trade.

MR. FRIEDRICH: To use it as a form of trade policy. But this kind of a policy can get away. It can get away. It can get away from you until it becomes uncontrollable, and I believe now is the time to repair the damage so to say.

MR. MAC NEIL: Fred Bergsten, do you buy that this was one of the influences, the U.S. friction with Japan?

MR. BERGSTEN: I don't think it was the friction with Japan so much as the underlying economics of the situation. Japan is running a massive and growing trade surplus. We're getting close to $150 billion. It's the only surplus country in the world of anything like that magnitude. Everybody agrees, including the Japanese, that their surplus has to come down. There are only three ways that can happen. They have to grow through the Japanese economy, liberalization of Japanese imports, or a stronger yen in the exchange market. Unfortunately, the weak government in Japan had been unable to get their economy growing and they had been unwilling to liberalize their imports, therefore, the only mechanism to bring down that huge Japanese surplus has been a rise in the exchange rate of the yen. I think the markets took it from there, pushed the yen up. If the Japanese had not been intervening so substantially in the exchange markets, themselves, over the last year, the yen would have already gone way beyond a hundred to one, probably would have been at ninety to one or so against the dollar. So if market forces had been permitted to play through, we would have already seen a much stronger yen. It's also worth noting that the yen rose steadily against the dollar all through last year with no adverse effects on the U.S. markets. The dollar did not weaken against other currencies. In fact, the dollar has been the second strongest currency in the world over the last year or two. So I don't think the stronger yen with problems between the U.S. and Japan can really be blamed for any of this upset in the currency markets or adverse spillover to the bond or other markets.

MR. MAC NEIL: Who is the market? Who has been getting out of dollars recently? Is it just people who speculate every day in currencies, or is it large firms with large deposits, or is banks moving? Who is the market in this kind of thing?

MR. BERGSTEN: Well, it's all of the above. But the markets are constantly reassessing the economic outlook. And I think in recent days there's been a reassessment of the relative outlook to the U.S. versus Germany and the rest of Europe. It now looks like the U.S. is growing a little less rapidly than the markets had thought, meaning our interest rates are less likely to go up. Germany, by contrast, I think now looks a little stronger. That means it's less likely German interest rates will go down. And that reassessment and the resultant expectations in the market seem to me that's what pulled the dollar down against the mark. I think the movements are largely in keeping with the economic fundamentals, and, therefore, it's a mistake to launch this big central bank effort to solve it.

MR. MAC NEIL: I'll come back to that in just a moment. Who do you think is the market? I mean, is your bank a part of this market? Are you like other banks, moving funds around with the expectations that Mr. Bergsten referred to?

MR. FRIEDRICH: Well, we are certainly moving funds around the market as people buying and selling dollars and other foreign currencies. I think as far as expectations are concerned, it is a very sensitive time for the German economy because, as Mr. Bergsten said, we are sort of teetering on the edge of recovery, and but that recovery is by no means yet a sure thing. And the United States dollar is an important factor in this recovery, and I would say the basic fundamental would point in the direction of a somewhat stronger rather than somewhat weaker dollar from the perspective of the German exporter who wishes to be supportive in his, in his recovery efforts by an ability to also sell on the international market.

MR. MAC NEIL: So he wants a lower mark?

MR. FRIEDRICH: Absolutely.

MR. MAC NEIL: And a higher dollar.

MR. FRIEDRICH: A stronger dollar. That is exactly right.

MR. MAC NEIL: What is the -- do you think the U.S. and its fellow central banks were right to mount this rescue move yesterday? Are you in favor of what they did?

MR. FRIEDRICH: Well, I think that question is sort of the residual question. Once we get into a situation that is judged as out of hand, then one might --

MR. MAC NEIL: Do you think it was out of hand?

MR. FRIEDRICH: I think it was judged out of hand. Otherwise, this dimension would not have happened. So in that case, on a spot situation, one might get some effect out of it eventually, but one never will reverse a real trend in the exchange just by intervening. So I think it's a relatively unimportant thing as far as the future developments in the exchange markets are concerned.

MR. MAC NEIL: Why do you think it was a wrong move, Fred Bergsten?

MR. BERGSTEN: The United States trade deficit hit about $140 billion last year. It'll probably hit a record 170 billion or so this year. It's headed towards 200 billion dollars next year, according to the International Monetary Fund. The Treasury yesterday said that the U.S. dollar was undervalued, implying it should get stronger. But to say that the dollar needs to get stronger and, therefore, less competitive at a time when our trade deficit is soaring toward a record $200 billion is a very strange statement. If the dollar goes up in value, that means a foreigner wanting to buy American products has to put up more of his currency, Deutschemarks or French franks, to buy the dollars, to buy the American product. And U.S. competitiveness is hurt. Every 1 percent rise in the value of the dollar increases our trade deficit by about $10 billion and robsthe United States economy of about 200,000 jobs. So when the Treasury calls for a stronger dollar in the face of a huge record and growing American trade deficit, it's a very hard statement to square with the economic fundamentals.

MR. MAC NEIL: Do you agree with Mr. Friedrich that one intervention like this is not going to stop the dollar -- it's not going to cure the problem?

MR. BERGSTEN: Intervention can be quite effective as the record of the last 10 years shows if it is mounted consistent with the underlying economic fundamentals. But as I've already indicated, I think on two counts the effort runs contrary to the fundamentals. It runs contrary to the huge American trade deficit and huge Japanese surplus, and it also runs contrary to the reassessment in the market of the relative growth and interest rate outlook between the United States and the other key countries.

MR. MAC NEIL: How long, Mr. Friedrich, do you think this intervention will protect the dollar from further declines if the fundamentals are what you both believe they are?

MR. FRIEDRICH: I do not think it will be protected for very long. The market is so much vaster than the amount of reserves available to the central banks.

MR. MAC NEIL: Give us a sense of that size. How much can be traded in a day, and what would be the reserves available to put up against them?

MR. FRIEDRICH: It could be a number of maybe 100 billion, one thousand billion dollars could be traded on the foreign exchange market in a day, and interventions double in the double digits, a billion numbers, are very, very high interventions.

MR. MAC NEIL: So you expect it to continue to go down?

MR. FRIEDRICH: I -- as I said before, I think intervention can be effective if it happens to catch the market when the fundamentals point in the direction anyway. But if that is not the case, then I believe, and there I disagree with Mr. Bergsten, I do not think it is the case, because I do think the fundamentals rather point towards a rather stronger than a weaker dollar from my point of view. So I don't think the interventions are going to be very effective.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Bergsten, won't the psychological effect of all these traders in currency of seeing the U.S. Treasury defend the dollar restore some of the confidence you were talking about?

MR. BERGSTEN: It could. And as I said, intervention has frequently been effective over the last 10 years. But the question is whether the Treasury and the other officials are on the side of the underlying economics. As Mr. Friedrich says, you cannot buck those underlying economics for very long. If the market thinks that the Treasury action is heralding a future increase in Fed interest rates, for example, then they would bet on the dollar, take advantage of the higher interest rates later, and the dollar might stay up. But I don't think our Treasury Department is wanting to promote higher interest rates for the United States economy. The Secretary of the Treasury said to the contrary over last weekend. President Clinton has said to the contrary. Another fear I have about the current effort, in fact, is that it invites the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates further to make good now on a pledge that's been taken to strengthen the dollar. That would slow down our economy at a time when it may be slowing down anyway and add to the perversity of what's being taught.

MR. MAC NEIL: Very briefly, you used to work for the Fed for a long time, do you see this as an indication to the Fed to raise rates again, interest rates again?

MR. FRIEDRICH:The Fed wants to be independent, but I believe the market expects the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, because the market expects the strongest economy with some kind of inflation out there in the future.

MR. MAC NEIL: I'll have to leave it there. Mr. Friedrich, Mr. Bergsten, thank you both.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, American Jews and Middle East peace, and Hanford nuclear tests. FOCUS - PEACE & AMERICAN JEWS

MR. LEHRER: Now American Jews facing peace in the Middle East. An agreement was signed yesterday turning over the Gaza Strip and the city of Jericho to Palestinian control. The prospect of that kind of peace in the Middle East is affecting not just those in the region but Jews in America as well. Margaret Warner reports on that effect in one American city, Baltimore.

MS. WARNER: Shoshana Cardin has been raising money in support for Jewish causes ever since she was eight years old. On this spring day, she was on her way to the White House for a Jewish leadership meeting with President Clinton. Her volunteer efforts have run the gamut, from charity to politics. But at the heart of her activism is her commitment to the state of Israel.

SHOSHANA CARDIN, Community Leader: I grew up in a Zionist home that collected money for the Jewish National Fund to buy land in what we hoped one day would be the Jewish homeland. I just never thought I would be blessed to live to see the fruition of that dream.

MS. WARNER: Her dream came true with the founding of Israel and the handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and PLO Leader Yasser Arafat at the White House last September 13th marked a major new step in trying to make that dream more secure. American Jews might have been expected to be overjoyed at the event. But the picture is more complicated than that. The handshake between Rabin and Arafat was like the fall of the Berlin Wall, a welcome event that could have some unwelcome consequences. For the nearly 6 million Jews in the United States, the peace process already is raising new questions about the meaning of Israel in their lives and about what it means to be an American Jew.

ARTHUR MAGIDA, Baltimore Jewish Times: Can there be a Judaism without an Israel that's in crisis? Obviously so. There was an Israel -- Judaism for many centuries before there was an Israel, but American Judaism over the last forty-eight, fifty years has become so wedded to the idea of rallying to Israel every five, ten years, whenever there's a new crisis, that it will have to find a new way to steer its energies.

MS. WARNER: Arthur Magida is senior editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times. It's one of the most highly regarded Jewish newspapers in the country, and it's supported by one of the oldest and most cohesive Jewish communities in America. There have been Jews in Baltimore since the late 1700s. As immigrants, they settled near the harbor, but today most of Baltimore's 95,000 Jews live in the Northwest suburbs. There are thriving synagogues of all varieties, though Baltimore has more orthodox Jews than most cities its size. There are two leading Jewish universities. There are kosher restaurants and supermarkets and even a kosher fast food spot. Yet, even if they live in a close-knit Jewish community like this one, many American Jews are losing touch with their faith. Fewer than half belong to a synagogue, and fewer than half marry within the faith. For Jews concerned about this apparent loss of identity, an Israel in danger has been a godsend, for virtually all American Jews, whether they're religious or not, do care deeply about Israel. These high school students from Beth Tfiloh Jewish Day School in Baltimore are leaving on their senior class trip to Israel. For these youngsters, Israel is the glue that binds them to their religion and to each other.

JEREMY GOLDMAN, Beth Tfiloh School: I feel when problems happen in Israel it's happening to the Jews as a whole. Even though I don't live there, I still feel that the Jews are connected to Israel.

STUDENT: I agree with Jeremy. I think no matter where you are, no matter what time of day, if something happens, whether or not it's good or its, it's horrible, you feel what they feel.

MS. WARNER: Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg heads the synagogue and day school these students attend in an affluent Baltimore suburb.

RABBI MITCHELL WOHLBERG, Beth Tfiloh Congregation: There's something in the Jewish psyche that has always said never feel overly comfortable and overly secure. There has got to be some place where the Jew can always go to and be welcomed with open arms, because history has told us that this somehow seems to be a need for a place like that. And when we didn't have it, we suffered terribly because of it.

MS. WARNER: Jews searched for a haven for nearly 2,000 years wherever they went. They lived on the fringe of the society. They were resented and persecuted. Austrian writer Theodor Herzl founded modern Zionism in the late 1800s after coming to believe the only way to fight anti-semitism was to create an independent Jewish state. Herzl believed a Jewish state would serve two purposes. It would be a refuge for Jews who were persecuted, and even some Jews who didn't choose to move there, it would concur dignity and a sense of identity. For lots of American Jews, Israel has done just that. Many members of the holocaust generation, like Nellie and Joseph Birnbaum of Baltimore say that the Holocaust and the founding of Israel taken together define their identity as Jews.

NELLIE BIRNBAUM: Without the religion, we wouldn't be Jews. And without Israel, I don't know whether we would survive even.

MS. WARNER: The Birnbaums both escaped from Central Europe in the late 1930s. Most of their relatives perished in concentration camps.

NELLIE BIRNBAUM: I think my feelings became more and more Zionist because I saw it as a solution to our problems.

MS. WARNER: Israel's founding was embraced as a redemption to the holocaust, but the Jewish state faced danger from the start. Frequent threats, like the 1967 war, only deepened American Jews' involvement in identification with Israel's cause.

LARRY STAPPLER, Businessman: When Israel won the Six Day War as a high holiday goer only two or three times a year, a certain ethnocentricity flowed through me, and I became a Jew because they won the war. And for the first time we did something positive as far as our image was concerned.

MS. WARNER: Larry Stappler is a third generation Baltimorean. He owns a catering and harbor tourist boat business with his daughter, Amy, and son, Michael. The Stapplers describe themselves as not particularly religious but as caring deeply about Israel.

LARRY STAPPLER: So I absolutely fit that mold. I was born a Jew. I practiced Judaism in some form, but my, my true -- I guess my true allegiance to Judaism flows through my feeling of the state of Israel, absolutely.

MS. WARNER: Over and over, American Jews responded to the dangers Israel faced. A recent survey by the American Jewish Committee found seven out of ten agreed with the statement: "If Israel were destroyed, I would feel as if I had suffered one of the greatest personal tragedies of my life." Private contributors, people like the Stapplers, have donated billions of dollars to Israel. Activists like Shoshana Cardin have lobbied Congress and the White House to give Israel billions more. Rabbi Joel Zaiman says what American Jews got in return was a cause that brought them together.

RABBI JOEL ZAIMAN, Chizuk Amuno Congregation: The ideology of ethnic Judaism was the ideology of holocaust and rebirth. And the state of Israel gave the Jewish people renewed hope, and that was a rallying point around which Jews gathered, and it galvanized the American Jewish community and brought some sense of unity to the disparate parts of it.

MS. WARNER: Now that Israel's on the verge of peace, that unity is being tested. A small but determined group of American Jews is fiercely debating the wisdom of Rabin's bold new steps toward peace. On the far right are radical hawks who want to expel all Arabs from the West Bank. But in Baltimore, as elsewhere, this group represents a narrow fringe. There is a more sizeable group of deeply religious Jews, however, who view the West Bank as part of the biblical land of Israel. At the very least, they would like to retain Jewish settlements there.

ARON RASKAS, Lawyer: That is where Adam and Eve are buried, Abram and his wife, Sarah, are buried, Isaac is buried. We're talking about 5,00 years of a Jewish presence in those areas.

MS. WARNER: But the security issue is what most troubles Rabin's critics here. Aron Raskas is a young lawyer and a member of the Baltimore Jewish Council, a leading civic group. He watched the White House ceremony at his downtown law firm.

ARON RASKAS: I felt despair. I felt disappointment, and I felt horror. I certainly did not feel any sense of optimism or joy.

MS. WARNER: He fears that Rabin will surrender strategically important land only to find the Arabs unwilling to deliver on peace. Since he hopes to emigrate to Israel one day, Raskas is particularly worried about the impact an unstable peace agreement would have on his four sons. If they move to Israel, they would have to serve in the Israeli army.

ARON RASKAS: That's a process that I thought would only lead to additional, further bloodshed later down the road.

MS. WARNER: On the other side of the debate is Robert Freedman, dean of the graduate school at Baltimore Hebrew University. He has long advocated trading land for peace, and he opposed building settlements in the occupied territories.

ROBERT FREEDMAN, Baltimore Hebrew University: On September 13th, we brought in a TV to the auditorium of Baltimore Hebrew University and watched with great joy as the events took place.

MS. WARNER: Freedman co-founded the Baltimore chapter of the liberal group Americans for Peace Now. His activities in the 1980s put him at odds with Israel's then hawkish government and almost cost Freedman his job. He and other peace advocates feel vindicated by Rabin's approach.

ROBERT FREEDMAN: There were a lot of those in Baltimore saying, "Who are you to criticize the prime minister of Israel? He lives there. He knows what's best." And I said, "Well, there are certain moral questions here. You know, when you see a land belonging to an Arab village and create a Jewish settlement, this is simply wrong and immoral."

MS. WARNER: But pollsters report that most American Jews are more conflicted about the peace process than Aron Raskas or Bob Freedman. When it comes to Israel's interests, they're generally prepared to trust Rabin's judgment, but they're deeply ambivalent about what peace would mean for them here in the United States. Those who were embarrassed by the previous Israeli government's hard line against the Palestinian uprising are eager to see the conflict end.

LARRY STAPPLER: The Jews at one time held the high ground when it came to publicity and public relations in America. But today the media shows a picture of a -- of an Israeli soldier pointing a gun at a little Arab child, and that's what has been going on. Children are being shot. We've lost the advantage, and, therefore, we don't have a -- there is no way on the face of this earth that we can continue the struggle.

MS. WARNER: But their desire to end the conflict is tempered by other concerns. Jewish leaders like Shoshana Cardin worry that if Israel is no longer in danger, they will have trouble raising money for Israel's more mundane but equally important economic need.

SHOSHANA CARDIN: Unfortunately, for us as a people, we have raised our moneys on tragedy and external events. Could we really change our rhetoric?

MS. WARNER: Rabbi Wohlberg also worries that without an endangered Israel as a fundraising tool, Jewish causes here at home, including synagogues like his, may suffer too.

RABBI MITCHELL WOHLBERG: Until relatively recently, the overwhelming emphasis and thrust of the fundraising was on the basis of Israel, the pitch was based on Israel. You bring in the Israeli speaker, the Israeli leader, and then we can half the cut.

LEE HENDLER, Community Leader: Israel became Torah. Oh, it absolutely became that.

MS. WARNER: For Lee Myerhoff Hendler, the possible loss of Israel as a cause is only exacerbating a personal challenge she already faces. For though her father helped found the Holocaust Museum in Washington, the holocaust and Israel have already lost much of their power in her life.

LEE HENDLER: I remember asking my mother the question of: "Why should I be a Jew?" And her answer was, "Because you're part of this 5,000 year tradition and because you owe it to the 6 million." I don't. I mean, I do and I don't. But if that's the only reason that I'm doing this, it's not a good enough reason; it won't last.

MS. WARNER: Joel Zaiman is Hendler's rabbi.

RABBI JOEL ZAIMAN, Chizuk Amuno Congregation: There has to be more of a reason to be Jewish, a reason that's going to play itself out in who you are as a human being, how you see yourself, how you relate to other people, how you live your life. After all, we live here in America. It's here that we have to play out our Judaism. We can't do it vicariously.

MS. WARNER: Some argue that decades of vicarious involvement with Israel has left American Judaism ill-equipped to deal with its own crisis. That crisis is the rapid assimilation of Jews into America's secular culture.

ARTHUR MAGDA: American Jews have to stop looking over their shoulder at what is going on in Israel as important as it is and as important as Israel needs American Jewish help, American Judaism also needs American Jewish help.

MS. WARNER: Some are looking for new ways to reaffirm their Jewish identity.

SHOSHANA CARDIN: Well, I'm the vice chairman of the -- yes -- of the Commission on Jewish Continuity.

MS. WARNER: Some activists like Shoshana Cardin say they'll keep working for Israel but in different ways. Others, like Bob Freedman, say they'll fight for new social causes here and overseas. Baltimore's rabbis argue that fighting for social causes doesn't make one a Jew, that the only way to recapture one's Jewish identity is to return to the religious aspect of Judaism. That's the course Lee Hendler is taking. Until recently, she described herself as the quintessential secular Jew. Now she's studying Hebrew and reading the Torah.

LEE HENDLER: There is no harm in secularity, and so where do you make a home? What ought to inform all of those instincts, all of those impulses that you have to do for good, and the answer that I've come up with is religion ought to do that, and Judaism has a great deal to say about it.

MS. WARNER: But millions of American Jews aren't ready for the personal religious commitment that Lee Hendler is making. So ow do people like the Stapplers retain some part of their Jewish identity? Perhaps by deepening their ties to Judaism's cultural and historic roots. And they think an Israel at peace could be part of that.

MICHAEL STAPPLER, Businessman: I believe Israel in my mind is a state of mind and it is extremely important, and I'm glad to see it thriving and maybe growing and addressing really tough issues like they're addressing now.

AMI STAPPLER, Businesswoman: It would be a wonderful place to take my children and to visit and feel more secure there than ever.

MS. WARNER: An Israel at peace, an Israel that feels like home. That's what these young people are hoping to find. But as they grow older, they may discover that Zionism's founder, Theodor Herzl, wrote the truth about their search some 100 years ago: "I know where that country lines," he wrote, "it lies in ourselves." UPDATE - DOWNWIND

MR. MAC NEIL: Finally tonight, a report on some Washington state people who call themselves "downwinders." For years they lived down wind of the federal government's Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Some of them claim they're entitled to government compensation because they were victims of government radiation tests. Gregg Hirakawa of public station KCTS-Seattle, has our report.

MR. HIRAKAWA: The nuclear plants at the Hanford Reservation in Washington State stands still these days. For almost 50 years, they produced the plutonium used in this country's nuclear arsenal. Through the early years of the Cold War, these nuclear weapons plants also showered nearby residents with large amounts of radioactivity. Today, Katherine Connerly says she is paying the price.

KATHERINE CONNERLY: I did not really worry about us until I started getting health problems because I did not realize the ramifications of having lived in that area, and so I haven't really even gotten angry up until the last few years.

MR. HIRAKAWA: The 45-year-old registered nurse who grew up around Hanford has been diagnosed with cancer. She walks for exercise these days because jogging causes her too much pain.

KATHERINE CONNERLY: I think that any time that you are dealing with something that you don't know what the effects are and you're releasing it into an area where people live, you are testing, and you are experimenting with their lives.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Revelations the U.S. conducted human radiation studies during the Cold War prompted Connerly to believe she too was involved in a radiological test. Betty Perkes, who along with her family, now takes medication for her thyroid, is another.

BETTY PERKES: I know -- I have no doubt in my mind that we were human guinea pigs for those people out there. I have no doubt that the DOE people and whoever their contractors are have radiated us.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Records show while many of the radioactive releases at Hanford were accidental, others were not. In the now infamous 1949 test known as the green run, scientists secretly released a cloud of radioactive iodine hoping to learn how to better track radioactive contamination. While the highest concentrations of radioactivity were found on the Hanford site, itself, harmful levels of radiation were recorded a hundred miles away. Lesser amounts of radioactivity eventually covered half of Washington State in Oregon.

JUDITH: [on phone] Hanford Health Information Network, Judith speaking.

MR. HIRAKAWA: The region has now established a hotline to gather information from people who may have been affected by radioactive releases from Hanford.

SPOKESMAN: We are taking this deposition on behalf of the witness.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Some so-called Hanford downwinders have filed a lawsuit against General Electric, Dupont, United Nuclear, ARCO, and Rockwell, the private contractors who operated the Hanford Nuclear plants for almost half a century.

SPOKESMAN: We will never get to the point where we'll be fully trusted.

MR. HIRAKAWA: The downwinders are also now looking for help from the federal government.

JUDITH JURGI: And I think everybody in this room knows that Hanford was the biggest experiment of them all.

MR. HIRAKAWA: During a recent Energy Department hearing chaired by Sec. Hazel O'Leary, downwinders argued they too should be eligible for any compensation received by other victims of human radiation experiments.

TOM BAILIE: Please don't differentiate the Hanford downwinders from the VA and the lab subjects, and the radiation experiments. We were just a bigger laboratory.

MR. HIRAKAWA: At issue is money.

HAZEL O'LEARY, Secretary of Energy: I've been clear from the very beginning, but this is something the American public must engage in, because providing medical help, assistance, and everything we want to do here has a cost. And so the Congress in the final analysis working with our administration must decide how much help and in what way.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Until 1963, the U.S. conducted hundreds of above ground nuclear tests at the government's test site in Nevada. Thousands of people across the Southwest eventually claimed they were injured from the radioactive fallout. In 1990, Congress authorized up to $50,000 be paid to people first or to the families of those killed by the radioactivity. So far, almost 1500 claims have been filed. The money will come from a $200 million government trust fund. No one has yet put a price tag on compensating downwinders at Hanford. Technically, those living around the reservation were bystanders and not officially involved in a government test. Still, the number of people exposed could be in the thousands.

BILL VOILAND, Compensation Opponent: This is a good seller.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Talk of compensating people for past governmental sins has brought out critics like Bill Voiland. The graphic artist was born in Richland in 1951. The city is located less than 20 miles from the Hanford facilities.

BILL VOILAND: You know, we all grew up there, and none of us have any problems.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Today Voiland sells a line of T-shirts called Nuclear Wear. He also markets what he calls an official radiation test kit, a glow in the dark sweatshirt complete with a blank check for the Energy Secretary to sign.

BILL VOILAND: For them bringing up something that's 50 years old and the standards that they operated under then and say, well, we're going to re-evaluate and look at it under today's standards, which is what they'll have to, creates a big quagmire, and I think they've got other things that, especially in the nuclear energy field, that they could be spending their energy on, rather than, than something "maybe right or wrong."

MR. HIRAKAWA: Critics like nuclear chemist Michael Fox question whether downwinders even have a case.

MICHAEL FOX, Nuclear Energy Advocate: There is no excess of thyroid mortality in a downwinder area, Franklin County. And that's according to the National Cancer Institute. The Washington State Registry of Cancer Disease doesn't show any excess either. What regrettably gets involved here is the emotional aspect of your family members and your constituents getting cancer, and there is some point beyond which political leaders cannot demand scientific rigor that they must cave in to anger and outrage.

MR. HIRAKAWA: For years, the government dismissed injury claims from Hanford on grounds health studies proved inconclusive. But for the past five years, a panel of scientists have reconstructed hour by hour the travel path of the numerous radioactive releases from the reservation. When completed later this year, the $26 million study will be the most comprehensive survey ever done at Hanford on potential radioactive exposure to people who have lived near the reservation. Panel chairman Dr. John Till believes the study will show a link between the radioactive emissions and certain illnesses.

DR. JOHN TILL, Nuclear Survey Chairman: Based on the magnitude of these releases, the preliminary doses that there likely were healthy facts caused by these releases because it was quite a large population that was exposed at the time.

PAT DOBEL, University of Washington: First of all, it was wrong not to inform the people and not to get their consent.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Ethics professor Pat Dobel says it is reasonable to compensate people who may have been injured from the radioactive Hanford emissions. While some early releases may be excused in the wartime race to build the bomb, he says secrecy at Hanford was carried too far during the following Cold War and relative peace.

PAT DOBEL: When you plan a test and one of the consequences of that test is going to be the exposure of large numbers of humans and of productive land to radiation, and you don't inform anyone of this, you don't take any efforts to minimize the harm to them, you don't provide any facilities to monitor and to help them if there's adverse consequences, that's clearly wrong.

MR. HIRAKAWA: While the radioactive emissions from Hanford have stopped, the problems surrounding the reservation have not. The site remains the largest collection of nuclear waste in the country. Containers storing high level radioactive fuel have started to corrode. The groundwater under the site is contaminated with radioactive and hazardous chemicals. The government already spends more than a billion and a half dollars annually at Hanford, compensating downwinders may cost hundreds of millions of dollars more. But attorney for the group, Tom Foulds, says money should not be the issue.

TOM FOULDS, Lawyer for "Downwinders": We've been willing to spend 1 1/2 billion dollars a year on property clean-up, and we're spending approximately so far about 40 million dollars on various studies as to what's happened to people and to property out there, but we haven't yet spent one dollar for medical care for any of these victims. Now there's something wrong with the value approach.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Katherine Connerly, who has been on chemotherapy, knows she may never see a government compensation check. She knows she may never have her day in court. But for now, Connerly believes she is doing what she can to make others aware of past events and to see they do not happen again. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, themajor stories of this Thursday, the House of Representatives by a two-vote margin passed a ban on 19 types of assault weapons. The government of Singapore carried out the punishment of four lashes with a rattan cane on 18- year-old American Michael Fay. The United States government lodged an official protest. And President Clinton announced a $600 million aid package for South Africa, following the country's first all- race elections. Good night, Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. And we'll see you again tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.